


Grand collection of (dead) Dance with Devils shorts!

by onewiththesunandstars



Category: Dance with Devils (Anime), Dance with Devils (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, also i love this ship have you nOtIcED, also not all of them are remritsu, but a lot of them are so, its a mess but its my mess and im proud, most of those shorts are supposed to be tied together but yall know ill never do that, most or all of them are unfinished, some of these are really short like REALLY
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onewiththesunandstars/pseuds/onewiththesunandstars
Summary: basically bunch dwd stuff i have written over the past one or two years. no coherent plot, i think. will probably keep adding as time goes on





	1. planes

Ritsuka had dreamt of dying in a plane crash once. She didn't remember when exactly that was, but remembered how she had woken up screaming and then her mother came running in, face pale, voice cracking. The two of them had cried that night, Ritsuka crying  _ Mama I don't wanna get on the plane, mama please, I don't wanna die on the plane _ , and Maria silently shedding tears for reasons then unknown (tears of relief, she found out much later, tears of _ i’m so glad you're okay _ )

She was now lying in a bed that she was too tired to try and recognise, and someone next to the bed held her hand and she had the same dream, but there was no screaming now but slight disappointment upon waking up to find herself still here.

Ritsuka imagined trying to flee everything by boarding a plane and crashing and it having nothing to do with devils or vampires or whatever-the-hell was also after her, just bad luck.

_ How nice would it be to actually die on the plane? _


	2. guilt-trip

Pawns were a great way to think of people, Rem decided at some point, a great way to distance himself from the people, to stop thinking of them as people.

Thinking of them like that, it made him feel such horrible guilt well up at the pit of his stomach, he would've let Lindo punch him in the gut with all the strength he had (and Lindo was strong, all right, very much so) and it would have felt less painful than that.

Thing is, people were people regardless of how you looked at them. That he knew, of course, it was at the back of his mind ready to dawn back on him each time Ritsuka said 'thank you', because he really, really didn't deserve those thanks, and it usually took him a lot of willpower and rational thought not to clutch at her shoulder and tell her to just run because nothing good would happen if he accepted her gratitude and let her lean on him.


	3. end of the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> randomly wrote this after dante's words in addtsotu stuck with me. gotta love this book :/

"When I was younger, I used to wake up thinking the world had ended." Rem mused aloud after a while of silence that threatened to deafen them both. "I'd get up and look into the mirror and I think I've never seen someone look so sad."

_ Until you _ , he wanted to add,  _ a lot of things were a certain way before you. _

_ I'm not sure if I'm glad or sorry about that. _

"You always look sad," that made him laugh. A little.

"I'm sad because now the world doesn't seem to budge. It won't end."

"Or it won't change"

"Yeah, it won't change" they were both laughing now, hands clasped unconsciously and the tragedy around them temporarily forgotten. Time felt like it'd stopped and Rem wondered for a moment if the world had truly ended while the two of them slept.


	4. words, words, words

Words were terrible things. Terrible and useless and so hard to say. Trying to say what you were expected to say, it was painful.

To say what you wanted, needed to say, that was painful too.

And Ritsuka probably knew that, had seen it in the pained looks on Rem’s face and the hesitation in his voice and him looking away from her, just a bit too far away, trying to convince himself that  _ she's not there she's not looking at him she's not she's not she's not— _

Rem felt—a bit too often—like she somehow saw him through thick curtains and was trying to tear them down and see more clearly. She was trying to get to him and was undoubtedly succeeding. Rem wasn’t sure if he minded.


	5. gratitude

“What's with you and ‘thank you’s?”

The way Ritsuka asked, Rem felt like she’d wanted to ask him that for a long time.  _Don't thank me,_   _I’m simply doing this because I want to_ , he had told her the first time she thanked him— truly thanked him, when they sat together at lunch a million years ago, and looking and searching for something that was then just a book had been much simpler.

Now nothing was _simple_ or _just_ anymore and Rem didn’t even know if what he wanted mattered.

 _Thank you_ meant gratitude, and gratitude meant trust. And trust… trust broke easily.

Rem remembered Urie—whom he’d left so suddenly, who had been a child—and Ritsuka herself, in the sky above that tower weeks ago.

“I don’t know.” He lied.


	6. sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wrote this @ 6am while looking out the car and staring at the sun. i thought that

she felt the blue press against her nose and was about to start crying again for an entirely different reason; it smelled of sun and heated glass and she shouldn't have known that scent so well but she did.

and so, ritsuka held onto him tighter than she had held him when that wave engulfed them both and she gripped for dear life, never quite afraid of drowning as she feared losing the sun in her arms.


	7. fragile, handle with care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is so sappy hahaha ew

Rem looked at her with bare trust and longing and Ritsuka could have sworn she'd never seen him - or anyone - so vulnerable. She felt like she was given a package, contents wrapped tenderly in silk or bubble wrap, and she feared holding it, for it could break if she wasn't careful enough.

His heart would break, she realised. He was giving her his heart, closing her fingers around it and holding their clasped hands to his chest.

_ If it came down to it, _ as if he was saying,  _ I'd let you break it. I'd be happy to. _

_ I can't,  _ she replied, hands tightening around his, grasping at everything the two of them were,  _ I can't, for the life of me, break your heart. _


	8. glory and gore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is me and rem-is-best-almond's oc amenthia she's rem's sister and i'll protect her with my life

Amenthia knew she wasn't going to leave the battlefield alive.

What she also knew was that her enemies weren't going to, either.

She knew, from the way her brother smiled at the oncoming men across the plain, a heathen god who's finally found his plaything. Even the pyrkagia in his hand couldn't match the deadly sharpness of that smile.

She knew, because there was nothing more deadly, nothing more glorious and terrifying, than an Arlond who was no longer bound, an Arlond who was _ free. _

So Amenthia smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pyrkagia is the name i made up for rems sword bc yall know a sword like his has gotta have one


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which glax is a bitch

  "To this day I wonder how my son, one of my best trained men, somehow failed at something so inexplicably simple as killing you for the power and safety our family needed. You see, with his team gone off who-knows-where it's become especially difficult to find someone who could tell the tale. And Rem,  _ wonderful _ weaver of words as he is, has likely woven some intricate lie and won't deign to tell me otherwise, no matter how many times I ask. Stubborn boy." 

  He didn't bother specifying what "ask" meant. No one dared guess. 

  "So tell me, human-heart," all eyes in the room shot to Ritsuka, whose eyes were fixed on the dais where Glax sat. He looked at her as though he know how her blood tasted.  "Did you spread your legs for him to spare your life, like your mother before you?" A mocking laugh. "I wonder what kind of offspring you will birth."

  A snicker passed through the throne room at the words. Rem's blood boiled at the sound— the implication that he'd stoop as low as to give up the Grimoire and let Ritsuka live just to  _ sleep _ with her, the idea that she'd forsake her dignity like that just to save her skin, the mention of her mother, her heritage…

  It was an effort to keep from unleashing all the fire in his arsenal upon the crowd— enough effort that his hands balled into fists.

  But Ritsuka hardly flinched at the insults pouring from all around her, most of them about him— _ liar, traitor, whore, half-breed, filth, failure, red-blooded, unloyal, whore _ —didn't even pale at the sneers and hatred of the court, her posture proud and her chin lifted. A queen— the queen she would have been had Maksis fared better against Rem's father .

   Ritsuka spoke, her words cleaving the sea of voices: "It does not matter if I fucked your son, his team, or the entire army of vampires that came after me. It doesn't matter if I fucked them, charmed them or killed them, either. All of it would have kept me alive long enough to become a threat— to you, and your court." 

   And it became easy, so easy to imagine the kind of ruler she'd become: brutal yet beloved by the people, willing to burn and destroy herself for them, all of them.

  She was the kind of queen people would get behind, the kind that only fools dared not follow.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ritsuka is whipping up some spicy shit. there are also rebels. i dont know what im doing

Amenthia hadn’t agreed at first.

The opposite, actually— she’d spent an hour spitting every colourful bit of profanity she knew at Ritsuka, calling her an insane wretch for so much as  _ suggesting _ that she let Rem take her to Glax, who would waste no time killing her quickly and ensure that everybody saw him do it, saying how this is a suicide plan, asking how  _ dare  _ she ask that of her, hasn’t she suffered enough, how could she even think she was any better than Glax when she was pretty much sending her to the butchering block, how did she know Rem would change his mind at the last possible minute, did she even know Rem at all to know this would happen…

It took another few hours into the night for Amenthia to begin to see the logic in her words. That, Ritsuka supposed, was a small miracle of its own, given that it wasn’t until the next morning that Amenthia finally agreed— albeit begrudgingly. But she couldn’t blame her.

Her plan  _ had _ been a fool’s hope that Rem would see how wrong was what Glax was asking of him— that killing Amenthia to prevent her from joining the rebels would become a bigger weight on his conscience than he could bear. And it had worked. A gamble that Rem would at last realize that he couldn’t do it, but a lucky one. Though she doubted neither Tia nor Rem would let her hear the end of it for taking such a risk.


	11. messages

three kinds of messages spread across the world when an exorcist died, and her friend spilled her grief and anger into her screams:

  1. one for those waiting: a beckoning for the power hungry and desperate — _i am here; take me, end me, use me._
  2. one for those fighting: a mourning cry and a reminder to be steel themselves, be wary; to kiss their children today and fight harder tomorrow, for they each knew their cause made them mortal, and that their god may be loving, but he would not protect them should their time come and there was nowhere to run. because as if in proof, another one of them has fallen.
  3. and one for those vengeful, those who have faced and caused enough loss for it to walk beside them like an age-old friend. those who, among the grief and anguish, heard the wrath in the screams echoing through cities, lands, realms. saw the demand for retribution in the light glowing from the center of the world. and knew that it was now a different kind of battle they were fighting. 



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is this? poetry??? idk


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whoop there's a lil bit of worldbuilding in this one

Amenthia had a very  _ very _ vague memory of who Mage Gangartua was. She’d visited Valavor* once with Rem during his training as heir— when the King Maksis had killed his family and they were figuring out what to do with their territory. They’d ended up passing the reign on to Glax until Mage came of age, since their kingdoms were closest geography-wise. Amenthia had had to sit out the decision making with the hens and the children, and had later begged her brother to recount every last detail.

At some point Mage  _ had _ come of age, but Glax had either forgotten who these lands belonged to, or was trying hard to pretend he had.

And now, once the Grimoire mission was over, Mage, Urie, and a third one named Shiki went straight to the capital and reclaimed the throne under Glax’s nose, then established the rebel headquarters there. There was a revolt unfolding at the firestone** mines, and any backbone Mage could have offered them was welcome, so it all happened within days. A few weeks after, Loviatar had joined them with a small group coming from Merthyr***. And then they’d requested bringing Ritsuka on board. Two months later, the question of bringing Amenthia in as well had come up in a meeting. The rebellion was just beginning to grow.

“It’s a long story” Mage told her, “and you are part in most of it, so I don’t think there’s point in telling you everything”

But that wasn’t the only thing Amenthia had questions about. There was also whatever her brother had with Ritsuka. He’d said there wasn’t much, that he’d had to leave before they had a chance in a friendship, let alone anything more. But he hadn’t denied that there was  _ something. _

When they finally arrived at the castle where the HQ was, there had been a small group of people who greeted them: Mage and Urie, a few steel faced medics from the Mas****, and Ritsuka, who had either been recuperating at the clinic, or volunteering— there was always need of an extra pair of hands. When he'd seen her, Rem had just limped over and taken her in his arms. 

And Ritsuka had held him too. Neither of them had said anything, least from what Amenthia could hear, and the medics escorted her to the clinic in the castle before she could see anything more.

She didn’t quite know what to say about it, the whole thing. Part of her felt that she didn’t have the right to say anything at all. Hell, she felt that they wouldn’t even be saying a word to each other for the next few days, given everything that had happened. But they owed each other that distance.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Valavor is the kingdom where Mage is from  
> ** Firestone is a red metal-like material that is used to forge various weaponry, such as Rem's sword  
> *** Merthyr is another kingdom in Gehenna  
> **** Mas - Mana ate Sarira, a healer's academy and hospital in Urie's homeland, Gyvas


	13. the shield and the sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i was high when i wrote this

Rem and his sister, as Urie remembered them, were an ever-competitive boy who rarely smiled but cried often, and some fledgling of a girl with the wits of a scholar and the stumbling of a duck. The two of them were children at the time he’d seen them last— Rem was nine and Amenthia, six.

He couldn’t comprehend the legends and rhymes that emerged about them:

 

> _ the sword and the shield and the shield and the sword _
> 
> _ pieces of armor made turned a whole _
> 
> _ born from the ashes and smolder of fire _
> 
> _ to punish our enemies with rage and ire _
> 
>  

Urie had heard them from healers at the Mas. Soldiers in the street. Refugees from Carrion. All them claimed to have seen the Arlond’s heirs fight off King Maksis’ wardog. The night when it happened Glax Arlond had overthrown Maksis’ reign, but none spoke of that.

All people talked about was Rem and Amenthia, compared them to an angel like the ones in legends, with four faces and four wings, a creature of metal and fire. Its power seemed contained compared to the fallen King’s right hand, they all claimed— the children sent to stall but not to kill. “Though, how grand would it have been,” they all had said, all with reverence, all with awe “if they fought with all their might?”

He didn’t quite believe the rumours, myths, whatever people called them, not when his own memory of the siblings was so at odds with the…  _ everything _ about those stories.

Some believed it was a monster that had fought the wardog, some that it was a wraith conjured by Glax, some actually thought he’d called forth a seraphim to do his bidding. He couldn’t envision the two of them— with Rem’s wish to become a  _ healer _ when he grew up, and Tia caring more about understanding devils than harming them— fight with such bloodlust.

He finally believed them, years later, when he saw them fight at the Vampire King’s castle on Earth. And it was possibly the ordinariness of the place compared to the red skies and air of magic in Gehenna, but Urie thought the tales did the siblings no justice.

It was like nothing Urie had seen before. They moved quickly with the sync and fluidity of a single being, Amenthia’s shield Rem’s own, his sword an extension of her arm. Both used fire, formed weapons and shields and walls of it, bled with it like living torches, and if you looked closer, it almost looked like strings of flame linked them together. 

It was amazing how they completed each other, like were meant to be born as one, but some force split them in two for fear of bringing such a deadly creature into the world.

And when brought together, as they should have been, it was a sight so beautiful and terrifying that the stories could reach across worlds


End file.
